Plaintiff lawyer: Indeed, most if not all regions of Italy, including Naples, Sicily, Sardinia, Veneto, etc., have their own rich dialects. Children are taught Tuscan in school, but may grow up speaking the local dialect at home. The situation is similar to that of Spain; Castilian is the dominant tongue, but regional dialects and languages are spoken in various parts of the country, including Catalan, spoken in Barcelona, and Euskera, a non-Latin language, spoken in Bilbao and the Basque country.

Ahmed and Bob Evans: The most widely used short definition of sustainability comes from the 1987 report of the World Commission on Environment and Development, known as the Brundtland Commission: "Development that meets the needs of the present without jeopardizing the ability of future generations to meet their own needs."

Dougal: I know of no American art museums that have returned Nazi-looted art in response to what you describe as "dubious claims." The Association of Art Museum Directors makes an appropriate distinction among the antiquities debate and artworks with gaps in provenance between 1933 and 1945 relating to the Holocaust. These are separate issues.

amberobit: From the late 1990s to the 2000s, the frequency of major exhibitions dropped from four a year to three, while the overall number of shows dropped from two dozen to perhaps a dozen a year. In the winter of 2005, the museum announced it would not be able to remain open through construction, as it had planned, but would immediately start closing galleries in sequence. The museum was entirely closed from January to October, 2006. At that point, the museum had no plans for community outreach events; it scrambled to put together a series of musical performances around town in venues such as churches, and to assemble the global loan shows based on CMA's collection. Meanwhile, the museum canceled two major exhibitions on the French romantic painter Girodet and the English landscapist J.M.W. Turner. Other scheduled exhibitions during the period varied widely in quality - and some were quite poor. Attendance in the 1990s averaged 500,000, but dropped sharply in the 2000s, and has how begun to climb back. The question after the expansion is completed in late 2013 is whether the newly enlarged museum will match or exceed historic performance benchmarks it set during the 1980s and 1990s.

MeAntiqueDigest: The 1911 date came from the recently published "Highlights from the Collection" catalogue of the Allen Memorial Art Museum. Actually, the curator involved informed me that the date was intended to be "after 1911." The museum may change the date to 1907 in future editions of its catalogue after a bit more checking, which seems advisable because the Smithsonian Institution itself appears confused on the issue. In one location, it gives 1911 as the last known date Edmonia Lewis was reported to be living in Rome:

riverpese: Too often in my years at The Plain Dealer I've seen the judgments of traffic engineers trump the concerns of landscape architects, urban designers, community development corporations and others interested in economic development. I wish it were otherwise. I think it's time for a wider discussion of this issue.

twinsdays, American da Vinci recently announced plans for a museum devoted to the art and industrial design of Viktor Schreckengost, which will open in May in the Tower Press Building at 21st and Superior. The second annual design expo will be held around the same time. You can read about those developments here: http://www.cleveland.com/arts/index.ssf/2011/01/a_new_museum_will_celebrate_cl.html

OldRuss: The museum's 12-step deaccessioning process requires curators to "seek to communicate with a donor or the donor's immediate successors about the disposition of a previously donated work as a courtesy." Museum officials also noted that Muriel Butkin, who bequeathed many of the works to be sold in the upcoming sales, specified in her will that the museum should keep only what it truly wants to keep.

Riley: For the record, I'm not an architect. I wouldn't want to give a false impression of my credentials. As for the design, the word I'd use is mundane, not urbane. I agree that a cable-stayed solution is not a good idea in this instance because the river is narrow and the flood plain is wide and shallow.

216ism: The rendering to which you refer depicts the alley on the south side of Euclid Avenue, which is not the side of the project next to Hessler Street. That's why you see "no sign of Hessler in this rendering."

To The Great Michael and others: The poverty surrounding University Circle is undeniable. It's also the focus of the five-year-old Greater University Circle initiative, which recently won a $14.75 million grant from Living Cities, a consortium of the nation's largest banks and foundations. You can read about it here: blog.cleveland.com/architecture/2010/10/living_cities_to_award_1475_mi.html. The point is that Cleveland foundations, community development corporations and instutitions are working on creative solutions, and their efforts, while nascent, are winning national attention. That's the larger context for Uptown.

rednedtugent: For the record, MRN Ltd. has purchased the land it needs only for the apartments under construction now. The company has options to buy the rest of the land needed from CWRU and UCI for Phase II of the project. CWRU owns the existing apartment towers at Uptown. The land for the alley will be transferred to city ownership. The land for MOCA and the plaza is owned by CWRU, which will lease to MOCA what it needs. Source: Ari Maron.

eyehrtfood, I appreciate your suggestion. I've explored these themes in several recent stories, and will return to them in the future. Previous articles on the topic include a piece last winter on the paucity of exhibitions with true star power: http://www.cleveland.com/arts/index.ssf/2010/01/cleveland_museum_of_art_needs.html and a piece in the summer of 2009 about Sherman Lee and his contributions to the CMA. http://www.cleveland.com/arts/index.ssf/2009/06/sherman_lee.html. Another piece in June of 2009 stated that the museum's new East Wing "actually highlights the ways in which the museum failed in the late 1950s and early 1960s to use a whopping endowment to buy great works by giants such as Pollock, Willem de Kooning and Arshile Gorky, when they were affordable." You can read that piece here: http://www.cleveland.com/arts/index.ssf/2009/06/cleveland_museum_of_arts_new_e.html.

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